Opera Singers
A female/male opera duo, dressed in stereotypical "Ride of the Valkyries" attire, join in the singing of Grim Grinning Ghosts, with the female wailing and ad-libbing on the third verse. The female is overweight, has blonde pigtails, and wears a winged helmet. Her partner is a thin, mustached man in armor, with a sheathed sword at his side. They were originally voiced/performed by Loulie Jean Norman (soprano) and Bill Reeve (tenor). These vocals remain in the Disneyland and Tokyo Mansions, but were replaced with new recordings at the Walt Disney World Mansion in 2007. The female opera singer may be named Harriet, as there is a tombstone attributed to "first lady of the opera, our haunting Harriet." This tombstone debuted on the hillside adjacent to the queue of the Walt Disney World Mansion in 2011. The characters are a visual pun on Phantom of the Opera, and may be a reference to the colloquialism "it ain't over 'til the fat lady sings."
The Opera Singers appear separately in the video game, and the female is one of the main "friendly ghosts," who died by "bringing down the house."
The characters were also meant to appear in the 2003 film, but ultimately didn't make the cut. One piece of concept art for the film depicted a much slimmer version of the female opera singer.
In the comics, the female opera singer is named Hilda in one story, and Baronessa Elda in another. Baronessa was a famous opera diva who was eventually fired for her ego. She received an invitation to sing at Gracey Manor, which she graciously accepted. However, once she realized her audience was made up entirely of ghosts, she ran out frightened and fell over a landing, her braid acting as a noose.
On a related note, other references to opera (and specifically Phantom of the Opera) have appeared in the Mansion(s). One of the staring portrait characters holds a lorgnette (a pair of spectacles often used by audience members at the opera). For years, in the attic of the Walt Disney World Mansion, a poster of Lon Chaney's Phantom of the Opera could be found among the bric-a-brac. Phantom Manor's storyline and general theme was heavily inspired by the story.
Read more about this topic: List Of Haunted Mansion Characters
Famous quotes containing the words opera and/or singers:
“The Opera is obviously the first draft of a fine spectacle; it suggests the idea of one.”
—Jean De La Bruyère (1645–1696)
“O you singers solitary, singing by yourself, projecting me,
O solitary me listening, never more shall I cease perpetuating you
Never more shall I escape, never more the reverberations,
Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent from me,
Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was before what
there in the night,
By the sea under the yellow and sagging moon,
The messenger there aroused, the fire, the sweet hell within,
The unknown want, the destiny of me.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)